Helping prospective graduate students find information about

MSU

Jim Green

Academic Computing and Network Services

Chair, MSU Web Team

Christina Tower

University Relations

July 19, 2006

This meeting’s purpose

Review the current situation and recent developments

Gather information from stakeholders and interested parties

Begin a dialog process toward determining the best course of action

Decide on the next steps

MSU Web Team

MSU Web Team Joint UR/LC&T team oversees www.msu.edu

content, design, and infrastructurewith direction from upper management

advises and assists departments with their web initiatives facilitate web design that will fit in with official MSU

web sites

Background

2003 www.msu.edu redesign project: “graduate portal” as a follow-on project “prospective students” is top target audience information architecture – findability – is the top design

priority 2006 www.msu.edu redesign 2006 admissions.msu.edu redesign 2006-2007 search.msu.edu redesign May 15 meeting with Janet and Les

Basic tasks

find program information degrees majors/minors fields/areas of study interdisciplinary programs

apply online special program/dept. procedures

find research and teaching opportunites assistantships

learn about and apply for financial aid find information about the MSU and EL communities

Current situation

multiple “front doors” -- institutional grad.msu.edu (Graduate School) admissions.msu.edu/beaspartan.com (Admissions) www.vprgs.msu.edu (VP for Research and Graduate Studies) www.msu.edu/future/index.html (MSU’s main web site) http://csp.msu.edu/pages/explore/grdintro.cfm (Career Services &

Placement) and at the college level

www.ns.msu.edu/pstudents/index.php (College of Nat. Sci.) http://www.cal.msu.edu/portals/ProspectiveStudents.htm (Arts & Letters) http://cas.msu.edu/prospectivestudents.php (CAS) http://web4.canr.msu.edu/canrhome/display_page.asp?

topic=Graduate&theme=Prospective%20Students&pagename=Department%20Links (College of Ag.)

Case Study – program information

Multiple lists of programs/majors Registrar Academic Programs and Descriptions

of Courses Admissions – majors list MSU web site academic programs list Graduate School colleges and programs list

Potential issues

Decentralization presents problems for users Information overlaps and gaps Programs, degrees, majors, minors, fields of study Multiple places to look for information Never sure you’ve seen all that’s available Lack of uniformity in how information is arranged Need to search/browse across all sources of info

searchers vs. browsers PDF format is a barrier

Examples from other institutions

Cornell no keyword search, but drop-down combined with

tabbed info display are fairly effective Minnesota

A to Z majors – searchable multiple lists and catalogs

Ohio State Separate programs and fields of study lists

Programs – searchable; Fields of Study is A to Z only

Possible courses of action

Do nothing Minor adjustments to existing resources Further investigation

meetings, brainstorming focus groups, usability studies

Smaller, targeted projects programs/fields database/search “Be a Spartan” for grads? …

Larger graduate resources web design project where would this fit?

Further information

Jim Green, Coordinator, Academic Systems Academic Computing and Network Svcs. jfgreen@msu.edu 432-7239

PowerPoint and handout:http://www.msu.edu/~jfgreen/presentations